Recession? What recession?

At school, I studied "Polisciandec" (Political Science and Economics). Political science was interesting. Economics, not so much. They don't call it "the dismal science" for nothing! Q. Why does God allow economists to live? A. To make astrologers look good by comparison! 

My point (and I do have one) is that political science and economics are inextricably intertwined. You can't do one without the other. Bad policies inevitably have bad economic consequences. This is a lesson which President Brandon and Prime Minister McBlackface seem not to have learned. Maybe they weren't in class that day. I commend to them, and to you, dear reader, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, by Amity Shlaes, HarperCollins 2007.

Our so-called leaders (and you) don't need to read the whole book. The introduction will do. It includes a quote from an 1883 essay called "The Forgotten Man", by William Graham Sumner, an American social scientist and classical liberal. To wit: 

As soon as A observes something, which seems to him to be wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine...what C shall do for X, or in the better case, what A, B, and C shall do for X.... 

I call [C] the Forgotten Man. Perhaps the appellation is not strictly correct. He is the man who never is thought of.... He works, he votes, generally he prays -- but he always pays.... 

There is nothing wrong (Ms Shlaes speaking now) with A and B helping X. What was wrong was the law, and the indenturing of C to the cause. Whereas C had been Sumner's forgotten man, [Roosevelt's] New Deal made X the forgotten man -- the poor man, the old man, labor, or any other recipient of government help. 

Roosevelt's work on behalf of his version of the forgotten man generated a new tradition. To justify giving to one forgotten man, the administration found, it had to make a scapegoat of another. Businessmen and businesses were the targets.... 

[During the Great Depression] C [became] the American who was not thought of. He was the Depression-era man who was not part of any political constituency and therefore lived the negatives of the period. 

He was the man who paid for the big projects, who got make-work instead of real work. He was the man who waited for economic growth that did not come.

As an editorialist in Indiana wrote in 1936, "Who is the 'forgotten man' in Muncie? I know him as intimately as I know my own undershirt. He is the fellow that is trying to get along without public relief and has been attempting the same thing since the depression that cracked down on him."

Roosevelt systematized interest-group politics...to include many constituencies.... [He] ministered to those groups, and was rewarded with votes. It can be argued that [he] created the modern entitlement challenge that so bedevils both parties.

[Roosevelt adopted] Keynesianism, named after John Maynard Keynes, [which] emphasized consumers, who were also voters. The theory gave license for perpetual experimentation. [It] also emphasized government spending. Yet focusing on consumers meant that Washington neglected the producer. Focusing on the fun of experiments neglected the question of whether unceasing experimentation might frighten business into terrified inaction.

Admiring the short-term action of spending drew attention away from its longer-term limits -- economies often go into recession when the spending disappears. 

Thus endeth the lesson. If you understand and agree with Ms Shlaes' analysis, you might bring it to the attention of your Congressperson or Member of Parliament. Chances are they won't "geddit", or, even if they do, won't dare -- if they are Democrats or Liberals -- to challenge their political masters. But when they finally admit that our economy is in recession, you'll be able to say "I told you so."